Only Watch 2017: three watches and a common thread

Any collector acquiring the unique versions of the Heure Impatiente from Hermès, the chronograph from Fabergé, and the Carpe Diem from Aghenor's workshop, would, in fact be purchasing a genuine slice of watchmaking history. Focus.

By Joël A. Grandjean

Managing Editor Switzerland

The big question is this: Will they be sold to a single person this November 11 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Geneva? It would certainly make a lot of sense. Among the forty-nine timepieces being offered, those three are characters with a common history, a very personal one, made up of high-level micromechanical authenticity and imbued with original, innovative, even revolutionary values. It's also a history that comes from the heart, since the unifying factor is Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, a creator of complicated calibers who gave the world of horology the term "poetic complications," and then, thanks to a competent advisor in matters concerning intellectual property, the word "AgenGraphe."

Hermès Slim d'Hermès l'Heure Impatiente for Only Watch 2017

Impatience, according to Hermès

After unveiling the Arceau Le Temps Suspendu, Hermès went on to offer playful ways of delivering time. In 2017, the model emerged in a variation called l'Heure Impatiente. The Manufacture Hermès movement H1912 inside is a compact device with a special module added. Twelve hours before an important event, the wearer can program a countdown that will start sixty minutes before the start of said event. And time then ticks away at a painfully slow rate – you can watch it go by, in reverse, in a separate dial located between 7 and 6 o'clock. At H-hour, a bell rings, a single, held, velvety note. This Hermès watch has been done up in the black and yellow of Only Watch, that is titanium for the case, with the yellow being the alligator leather of the strap.

Fabergé: a new rendition of the legendary egg

After almost ten years of research, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht turned his attention to one of the watersheds of complicated chronometry, namely, the chronograph. For over a century, conventional wisdom imposed certain esthetics for the functions of a wristwatch able to measure intermediary time: two or three registers appearing as subdials was the norm. So, what if everything began at the center? To celebrate the centenary of the Russian Revolution and the unfinished egg that Fabergé named Constellation, the company developed its Visionnaire Chronograph together with Agenhor. The watch's hours and minutes appear at the edge of the dial, while the chronograph appears at the center. Again, a bright yellow color was used for the chronograph section of the dial, while an Only Watch engraving appears right on the caliber.

Carpe Diem: superb zero reset

"No other timepiece reflects that freeze-frame moment quite as well," says Jean-Marc Wiederrecht. He has just finished assembling his reinvented chronograph, the AgenGraphe, inside a timepiece dedicated to the present time, after having supplied it to the brand Singer Reimagined – which was selected by the GPHG, Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève. Once again, the architecture of his new caliber allows focus to be placed on a central point, a heart enclosed in a glass sphere

Agenhor X Head Carpe Diem for Only Watch 2017

"Carpe Diem is an invitation to cherish the moment, which is real but fleeting. It's the first time – and the last as well – that Agenhor produced an instrument to measure time bearing the company name. A group of students from the HEAD, Geneva's University of Art and Design, were involved in creating this work."

Jean-Marc Wiederrecht

Agenhor X Head Carpe Diem for Only Watch 2017

This is how this man, the eminence behind many watch brands, is detailing lot 1 of the Only Watch auction. He has made a staggering reputation for himself among collectors